Pi**ed off at AVG

The_B_Man

Hi,
I use AVG Free 7.5, and last night I actually got a pop-up from AVG Free!!

It start tellin me how brilliant the new, 50 quid, version was! I followed the link out of curiosity and then kinda got more pissed off at it.

Link:
http://campaign.grisoft.com/ww.special-upgrade-7-8-free-01a-free78cnv/

it says that:

Typical results of virus attacks:

* Very slow computer
* Deleted or corrupted documents and files
* Computer that does not function correctly

How vague is that!! any non-tech savvy person would automatically assume their PC was fecked and start to panic!!

then there was this:

Typical results of spyware attacks:

* Theft of your credit card numbers and passwords
* Unknown icons on your desktop
* A different homepage in your browser
* Unwanted advertisements (also likely to be infected)

Firstly, they wouldnt know what half the icons were on their desktop if they were that non-tech savvy. And "un-wanted advertisements"???? eh, what was this!!

dunno why, but it just pissed me off! :mad:

Sherifu

First i've heard of AVG doing this tbh. It is one of the more annoying ways to advertise. Is there an option to kill these pop-ups?

drunkmonkey

I use microsoft live one care....it's free for the first 90 days and all my computers are running 100%, i'm now half way through my second years subscription....

A lot of people knock it but they way I look at it, Microsoft built windows so who better knows how to fix it......

http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-ie/default.htm?mkt=en-ie&s_cid=WL2Hdr


take off avg for 90 days and see how you get on...your pc will thank you....

DirkVoodoo

Never got a pop up from AVG, what website were you visiting?

In all fairness, its a great product that hasn't cost you a dime, so I wouldn't hold this against them.

Khannie

drunkmonkey wrote: »

they way I look at it, Microsoft built windows so who better knows how to fix it......

You should have a look at their anti-virus history. There's a good reason MS stayed out of the anti-virus market for so long.

The_B_Man

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Never got a pop up from AVG, what website were you visiting?

No site in particular. In fact, I dont think i had any windows open at all!

I wil say though, it was my first and only popup i ever got from AVG software. I think it just pissed me off coz I go to enough trouble to keep my PC free from popups et al, and one of the programs i've employed to keep me "safe" has doen exactly what its supposed to block!! (well, not exactly but ya know wat i mean)

yoyo

The new AVG (version 8) is commercial app and rubbish tbh from what I see, I have switched to Avira AntiVir instead (http://www.free-av.com/), It actually performs way better in tests against Avast, AVG aswell, really a good freebie

Nick

mathias

A lot of people knock it but they way I look at it, Microsoft built windows so who better knows how to fix it......

Also throw in the fact that the " police shouldnt be policing the police " if you know what I mean , especially when it comes to spyware ,

You should always have a trusted third party scanner , microsoft are not above planting the odd information gathering tool on your computer without your knowledge , you cant trust them to clean their own spyware of your computer.

ActorSeeksJob

Terrible move by AVG

Can get lot better programs for free, so not a huge loss

AlmightyCushion

I got this as well. It's not from a website as far as I can tell, I think avg (the program) does it it's self. It poped up for me a few time in the one day but hasn't done it since. At first I though it was telling me about an upgrade for the free version which would have been fine, when I found out it was an advertisement for the pay for version I wasn't impressed.

DublinWriter

It popped up on me *once* a few weeks ago.

In all fairness OP, you are getting a pretty good program for free. It's not like it's nagware reminding you every day to upgrade to the commercial version.

Thrill

It popped up for me once last week. I don't mind putting up with a pop-up once every now and again for AVG. I think it's a small price to pay for it.

Thrill

Thrill wrote: »

It popped up for me once last week. I don't mind putting up with a pop-up once every now and again for AVG. I think it's a small price to pay for it.

Did I say every now and again?

Another pop-up for AVG appeared today. Hmmmmmm.

Still, AVG is good and it's free.

biko

So what? It's free. I haven't had a pop up yet but it wouldn't be a big deal.

edit beaten by Thrill

Ruu_Old

Haven't seen any popups with AVG, did see this happen with AntiVir though (at every virus definitions update, got incredibly annoying).

yoyo

Ruu wrote: »

Haven't seen any popups with AVG, did see this happen with AntiVir though (at every virus definitions update, got incredibly annoying).

There is a way around the AntiVir popup issiue Google has a few methods available

Nick

Thrill

This is the third day in a row now that I've gotten that pop-up. Looks like it might be a permanent thing. I hope not though.

Cmol

Ok, speaking of AVG, how the hell do i get it off my computer once the free trial has run out?!?! Everytime I turn on the laptop now there is a message from AVG telling me that my free trial has expired and I need to now pay to upgrade *however* the uninstall button on this screen doesnt do anything and everytime I try to uninstall from the control panel it tells me there is something that has failed to uninstall......
Starting to drive me up the wall a bit....

Karoma

Boot to safe mode -> control panel - uninstall?

Cmol

Now for the really clever question, I know what safe mode is but how do I get the computer to start up into it?

Sherifu

F8 at the OS screen.

yoyo

If all else fails reinstall the trial, then try uninstall, should fix it if something got corrupted

Nick

Cmol

Unistalled through safe mode... worked a treat!!

Thanks a mil

There is a free version of AVG 8.0, it was only released within the last couple of days. But I know the nagware like screen you're referring to, popped up once on each of my two work PCs today and I'm sure I saw it on my home PC last week.

The free version 8.0 has a built in anti-spyware app too. Seems interesting so far.

h2s

The popups come through the avg program itself when it does an update. If you noticed a few months ago a new announcement panel appeared on the interface after a previous update. I am a bit annoyed at Grisoft for doing this it smacked of the likes of "xp antivirus"

I installed AGV8 last week and while there were no infections on any of my machines it did find a load of sh*ite in the registry which incidently spyware terminator failed to identify. It was crap made up of adware, tracking cookies and what looked like remains of trojans.

Previous to this my standard set up was to install AVG 7.5 & Spyware Terminator. I also run a smoothwall express firewall with dansguardian for that belt & braces approach.

So is it a case that Spyware Terminator is a load of rubbish, giving a false sense of security?

I did notice that AVG 8 intermittently maxs out an old Sempron 3000 machine @ 100%, an other machine has no problems being an E6850 however even that goes up to 35%.

numbnuts

h2s wrote: »

I did notice that AVG 8 intermittently maxs out an old Sempron 3000 machine @ 100%, an other machine has no problems being an E6850 however even that goes up to 35%.

I’m not happy that the tool bar comes pre-ticked..
It is a bit more than the Yahoo search bar, but with IE7 and other mechanisms that don't cripple the computer as many people have reported.

LinkScanner is a new security component included in the AVG 8.0 Free Edition, which provides the Search-Shield functionality. Its purpose is to scan all results of the supported Internet search engines (Yahoo!, Google, MSN), and provides you with an evaluation of a safety level of each found website. At the same time, the LinkScanner also checks all Internet addresses typed into the address bar of your browser, or linked on other websites.

and

If you wish to install AVG 8.0 Free Edition without the LinkScanner component, or uninstall this component from your program, please proceed as follows:

• Download the AVG 8.0 Free Edition installation package from our website.
• Run the installation with the parameters /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch. One way to achieve this is to:
  • save the AVG Free installation file directly to disk C:\
  • open menu Start -> Run
  • type
    c:\avg_free_stf_*.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch
• The installation will be started, and AVG will be installed without the LinkScanner component.

Even resellers of AVG recommend against the LinkScanner because it slows the computer to a crawl.

http://free.grisoft.com/ww.faq.num-1241


Paddy..;)

AlmightyCushion

Just about to install avg8 on my newly formatted old desktop. I didn't know about that link scanner thing. Will make sure not to install that. Cheers numbnuts.